Past Tense
by Novoux
Summary: Their relationship ended in the terms of being in the past tense. What was between them wasn't as important as what isn't now. Shizaya.


He could never bother to count the days. On their own one became two and two became too many to care for. Which was amusing when Izaya didn't suppose he would care all that much. Realign the broken fracture in his arm already set in splints and this time it was not by Shizu-chan, the stupid beast. Enough ignored medication doses led him straight back to Shinra who could only scold him time and time again, waiting for the day Izaya came by with his head torn clean off by what he suspected to be Shizuo. In a matter of confidential around-the-subject type of comments did he come to realize that Izaya's broken arm was never involved with Shizuo. Shizuo was involved with not creating the broken arm, but preventing it. Izaya never obliged to tell what exactly happened then, supposed by now that it wasn't worth caring for when the medical bill was already paid and Shinra was asking far too much.

It was too painful, Izaya thought, lying in his bed and a stiff arm twisted back into place, to recall the facts. He knew he had to get up some time today, being two or five in the afternoon and not moving much at all, for once following Shinra's order to stay still and let the bones heal. The silence that draped over him was only a side effect of breaking up instead of breaking bones. Infinitely more painful in twisted pulling of forced lips closing shut on teeth bared and anger wanting to surface but never finding stable ground to pull himself back up. In theory, it was just a simple break of the bones in his forearm and maybe the rest of his dysfunctional balance of emotion turning into overdrive.

His own information used against him, and this was the result.

Turned to his side, he pretended that the swollen eye pressed against his sheets didn't leak either. Not when Shizuo left him and turned without a word. Never when they fight quite like this. Lying in bed all day and the sheets were too much and the bed too empty, as sprawled out as he was and still uncomfortable no matter the amount of pillows supporting him and his arm's cast. It wasn't normally like this, he realized, in the entirety of spending a day attempting to get by as emails never registered in his mind and his phone never rang for the call he meant to wait for. It felt exhausting just to stare at the screen filling and refreshing every minute with new emails as job requests from lucrative business offers to run-of-the-mill information bartering. Not that he felt like doing much, anyway.

His stomach growled and as dull as it sounded he knew that the antibiotics on his nightstand were to be taken with some small amount of food. As annoyed as he was for the medications dumped on him from messing up one time (and the time before _that, _which didn't have the luxury of being forgotten) before and Shinra's strict warnings on not doing it again. He knew better, clearly, but having the dull numbing ache like ice fingers creeping throughout his chest and in between his ribs to fit in a grasp of a deathly cold hand he imagined that this was what emotions were supposed to be like. Or something entirely different, seeing as he never cared for analyzing his own emotions—they didn't exist, he believed many times before and still so stubborn—when the end was already over and this was for not just his interest. The trickling cold never subsided, he noticed soon enough.

Carefully propelling himself off the bed with his pillows and a good arm to push his feet to the bare hardwood floor, Izaya pulled himself up and waited for the blackening spots in his vision to settle, having been there for who knew how long now. They came with the numbing buzz in his head and the feeling of being carved empty and hanging out to dry when the water would stop tricking and maybe from his eyes if they counted in producing saltwater in the moments of pretending to be asleep. Not even a day passed with one last touch and the agony was much more cleanly cut this way. Shifting to his door and eyes watching blankly as he moved, Izaya had arrived in his kitchen with the intent of grabbing a cup of water first before taking longer moments to swallow as much as he could. His body remembered that it needed water and responded fast enough, filling the cup a second time in his hands before he was satisfied enough to leave it on his countertop.

But the urge to eat hadn't returned. Not always a good eater but certainly picky, it didn't bother him before. Skipping a meal or two wasn't so bad unless if _he _found out and by then—forget about that. Shaking his head to himself he reminded his malfunctioning brain that it wasn't important what the details were. Just fingers slipping into his pocket of a black hoodie and pulling out one of his many cellphones, the only one that had been on for days and days on end, never on vibrate or silent. Twirling the plastic in his hand he knew there were only a couple numbers programmed in this particular phone, being the only one of the many times his others were so coincidentally destroyed by the same hands.

It was a habit of flipping the screen up and fingers pressing to bring up a contact. Dancing over the keys he let his fingers hesitate, mind conflicting with itself as soon as he saw the name. So stupid and he knew better than to call when it was already confirmed there was nothing left to say. Just to hear the voice of the same tone who left him behind as soon as his arm was snapped in the grasp of another. Not only a joke but a misunderstanding and he would have liked to believe that maybe the other was smarter than he was then. For now it was recounting the numbers in his head knowing fully well that dialing at this hour made no sense at all. It was a battle of logic and the numb stupid feelings of emotion—as simple as breathing in and out in icy breaths to combat the urge of wanting to appease the ugly unknown from inside of his own diseased mind.

Not a good idea—stop it. Just hang up the phone—what was he _doing—_the button pressing beneath his fingers and the pads of cold hands and he didn't have the luxury of remembering a higher body temperature that wasn't his own. But it was too late—the dial tone of ringing and in surprise he gripped the counter top edge tightly in one hand, leaving the phone to buzz on the smooth surface as his mind warred with itself. Hang up hang up hang _up _now because if he didn't then it meant having to hear what he had been taking precautionary measures to tell himself that he didn't need to repeat the same mistakes. Stopstopstopstop—why is it ringing still when his fingers never move when they're supposed to—

Click.

"What the fuck do you want?" _he_ growled as soon as the tone clicked, Izaya knowing beforehand this would happen. Ignoring the empty desperate clench that bubbled beneath his throat he didn't bother to speak up and taunt the monster, already aware of why he was doing this in the first place. Cradling a cellphone—a personal one—with his left shoulder and tapping on his counter, holding himself up so as to not fall in his kitchen. Around him there are cabinets and cupboards filled with meaningless excuses for being here. The hardwood floor wasn't as inviting if there wasn't another blond head waiting for him to join. Tangled limbs, as much as they lumped in his throat to overflow and mention in passing that perhaps it was hurting more than just his arm for hearing the voice on the phone and knowing how stupid this all was. In some desperate attempt of self-validation and confirmation of how stupid he was then and for playing this game for too long. Giving in, then.

Izaya opened his mouth, preparing to say any insult that came to mind in the next span of three seconds and left heavily unsatisfied when the air didn't come. No sound or words for what he wanted to say, sitting dryly on the back of his tongue and never wanting to wait for him to pick up the call. "Don't waste my time, you goddamn asshole. Spit it out already." Shizuo clipped with an angry press of plastic echoing into Izaya's ear, crunching like the snap of bones in his arm when he watched Shizuo turn and leave, not a second in consideration for the scene of choosing Izaya or someone else.

But he didn't care, Izaya recalled with the hesitance still lingering. Didn't care that it would hurt when he was pinned down and as if the last year meant nothing to him. The year before that as well-why were they fighting over this at all? Why would it be such an issue when two years was measurable in the dryness of Izaya feeling his own will shrivel up and die, just like Shizu-chan's reasoning to be with him any longer? Maybe all the choked-up musings of having nothing much to say after the first ungodly shriek tearing through his throat more from pain of one kind shifting over the other when watching Shizuo walk away, unfazed as the echo carried down buildings. The numbing sort of agonized pangs keeping still in his chest, filling lead and coal tar into his lungs so as to be careful not to slip up and breathe without making preparation for the next breath and so not as to break down in public.

It was a mistake.

All of this was a mistake. Izaya knew that easily when Shizuo decided to walk away and had the stupid ugly worthless—useless hope to believe that it wouldn't faze Shizuo at all. A simple joke he took too far and with Shizuo's sense of humor maybe it was harder to tell when they reached the breaking point of funny stumbling into self-driven misery and a broken arm. Even if his knees were fine and he didn't consider the bruises on them worth consideration he still didn't understand the meaning of having to clutch onto his kitchen counter, on the verge of what he thought would maybe end more than just their relationship if sanity was taken as well. Everything depended on the tense of not royally fucking things over in the sense of anger and a practical joke beyond the point of funny. _Past tense,_ that was.

"Fuck, Izaya, say something or I'm hanging up. This better not be another part of your humor." Shizuo snarled, anger carrying over the phone and not once thinking beyond what basic instinct of anger and betrayal that lined up too perfectly with the ache that was taking over. Izaya—fucking flea and cheating bastard, didn't know what it felt like to have anger pouring heavy like molten lava and expecting to keep carrying on through the day and the thoughts of wanting to see the other. No, the flea didn't understand anything when it came to relationships. All the fucking promises of not breaking things and anger dissipating when lips brush carefully against his eyelids, arms tangling underneath his and holding on for whatever they're supposed to mean. Not the edge of numb and cold blinking insanity behind closing eyelids empty sheets torn apart fluttering in the origami folds of some stupid emotional proverb to stab into his heart and cut through until the muscle had not a layer left to keep himself dying. Finish the job frustratingly enough as he picked himself up in the aftermath and fallout around breaking down shedding into anger and sorrow—no, he wouldn't go there. That wasn't what he was meant to _feel _in terms of feeling anything at all for some stupid fucking mistake.

But they mean nothing at all, those promises of ugly truths, and Izaya was still silent save for the small baited breaths similar to the sound of breaking down on his own part without the mess of tangling into bedsheets at night saved for later on and realizing that the bed is colder now and drifting apart from the continent once connected and severed with the cracking lines to fill with rushing water. "Whatever. Fuck you." Shizuo gave in finally to the other urge than demanding all the questions filling and sinking in his head, drowning and waiting when he wondered why and how this happened. And the strength it took to push the 'end call' button on his own phone and wait for the cutoff of not hearing from Izaya anymore, making this final, was more than it took to not throw his phone away because the flea called. No idea at all what it meant to break down over the phone and wait for some supposed hope of confirming that emotions were worthless and crush himself to rebuild anew from ashes and flames.

"Shizu—!" Izaya's voice croaked over the static of the line, Shizuo dangerously close to ending the call and the risk of wanting to listen was too much to handle in the headache of things. Couldn't fucking talk to an ex-boyfriend and here he was sitting like an idiot and expecting the call to mean more than a reaffirmation of what they both knew. Knowing didn't mean making it for the better or worse of the situation rolling down a hill and in the balance of whether or not Izaya's arm would break. All a gamble and playing the cards wrong, wrong game wrong time wrong meaning wrong words to say and wrong stupid smile wrong wrong wrong—_why _did it hurt so much _now?_

Shizuo didn't care for formalities of saying goodbye and picking apart pieces of an informant he didn't realize or knew with enough cruelty to let him shatter in his palms. It would be nice if the flea had any sense of manners or being a human being, seeing as he failed at that more often than sometimes. Why did he ever bother with it didn't need to matter now. Just hang the fucking phone up, maybe try not to let it crunch when it would slam into the wall after throwing it through the wall and more likely into the next ten buildings. "What the fuck now, Izaya. Just hurry up with your shit and don't fucking call me anymore." Didn't listen to the hitching shudder he knew as a sign of being upset rarely in the world of (Izaya being less than a god, never an admitted weakness so strong) aching this badly.

Izaya didn't speak for another string of moments loosely tied and Shizuo didn't expect much more than the laughing mockery when his eyes were red and cigarettes weren't a solution anymore. He still remembered the taste of bitter coffee and a gentle tongue pressing into his lips while asking for more, swinging around his side and Shizuo remembered the weight of an informant lying against him when they parted. Good morning kisses, fingers curling into the gaps of his and if they never fit perfectly then it was alright with them. He couldn't date the last time it felt like it was yesterday. It felt like years in this fucking apartment with Izaya in his and they weren't planning to see each other again. An impromptu goodbye for the heat of the moment and a dull pulse of the fiery anger that had been there. He remembered the numb sort of feeling in the start of the fallout as the anger destroyed too many street signs, vending machines, and trash cans to keep count. It all never added up to anything.

(Subtracting the negatives never worked in this sort of logic.)

Okay. Swallow it down, don't think about it. Izaya finally decided to pipe in, and the moment he did he sounded worse than usual. "Does Shizu-chan hate me that much?" he was quiet in a solemn murmur, breaths pausing as if to hide the attempt of not sounding like his vocabulary was suffering from nothing at all, which made no fucking sense at all when he was the one who started this bullshit. And now, he ended it. Not even a joke, Shizuo suspected this much and maybe even less of a character when he picked up Izaya's call.

"I never hated you," Shizuo decided to answer in response to his own disquieted thoughts, wanting nothing more than what was better than a smoke and the same feeling that swelled in his chest dropping lower and spreading like a contagion that came from an actual smile to go and Izaya to stay at the end of the day. He didn't want this leaving and counting and ignoring too much when it hurt more than he would admit to feeling. Monsters didn't know human emotions, Shizuo reminded himself of Izaya's bitter saying. So the empty clog of welling up frustration was nothing more than a side effect of a long, drawn-out flustered way of saying goodbye and the world would not end if Shizuo was to spit out the next words that slipped around in his mouth.

There wasn't much reason to miss the taste of Izaya at any time in the day. But he needed to end this now before he stabbed himself and would fail only his own delicate balance of keeping track from the beginning of when to expect not being able to be loved by another monster. Feeding off his emotions, hard enough to elicit from his own throat and choke free in strings of murmured confessions or silent things like kissing and holding and weird things couples wouldn't normally do but they—they weren't normal any day of the week.

Maybe his throat clogged and choked on the next words but he needed to spit them out right fucking now. "But I don't love you anymore."

From the other side, he heard the phone drop and clatter onto the smooth surface of the kitchen counter. Waited for the moments to clear and calm down the first response of his heart impaling itself on his ribs when he wanted more than he could have. The first sign of rolling downhill fast picking up speed in removing the phone from his ear and covering the receiver with a hand, almost crushing the phone while his other hand covered his mouth in a slap to hold in the sigh tumbling into a noise (he couldn't let it happen) that would give away his own facade of being better than whatever this was.

"I-I know, Shizu-ch..." Izaya swallowed bitterly when he picked up the phone again, consciously giving effort to suppress the noise of heavier breaths pulling Shizuo back in—no, no, no fucking stop it right now. Shizuo had the phone back to his ear, drifting away in a slow detach like cutting the strings of stitches holding himself together up until this moment and then facing the pain without a flinch. "Shizu—o." Izaya tried again, falling silent and there wasn't much left between them but empty hearts and one more call thrown to waste.

The call ended on his own behalf before listening to more. Dull tone sounding for minutes later to realize that it still wasn't enough to make the fresh wounds stop bleeding after ripping the stitches out.

It was for the best, after all.

* * *

><p>Even the walls were more inviting than he was. Waiting time after time before work, after work, or staring into nothing when Tom tried to start a conversation. More than once, almost always asking what had happened and where Izaya was—that was the first and last mistake. Shizuo calmly shook his head, not wanting to meet the eyes of his employer and explain the reason why he couldn't eat the various sweet treats in front of him. Voronoa even tried as well, talking about nothing in particular or the history of cake in Russia to try and make Shizuo pay attention to reality for once. And when she had asked if Izaya was to be exterminated for somehow betraying him and promising a successful revenge, Shizuo had quietly and carefully approached the asshole that was trying to cheat Tom of his owed debt and slammed his face with a fist into the ground.<p>

Cracking noises had sounded and Tom was surprised, taking the money from the guy and walking away with them while asking what had happened. Vorona tried to apologize multiple times with each more unsure than the next of why she was in the first place. Tom finally took her aside, asking Shizuo to wait for them—not at Russia Sushi, not again—and told Vorona not to speak about it any more. Besides, he'd reasoned, maybe Shizuo was in a rough patch and just needed some alone time.

So Shizuo found himself dismissed from work for the rest of the week on paid leave, confused as to why Tom would and momentarily brightening again but in the neutral question of asking why—Tom shook his head with an unsure smile. "Just try and feel better," he said, and Shizuo didn't bother to add that it was harder to be alone in his thoughts as he had been every single day. But nevertheless, he took the order from his boss with a little coercion and took the longer route back to his apartment. Cellphone in hand he didn't bother to look at the caller list, knowing what number had been in the top ten spots for the past week and finally starting to taper off into silence stretching further like the beginning of this year's summer. Didn't need a reason to get angry and destroy something and oddly finding out one morning that he didn't have the strength to snap the second toothbrush with fairies on it in his bathroom. Instead, he just left it be, alone in its single cup and soon rejoined by his.

There wasn't really much reason to keep moping like an idiot. What he had done by hanging up was for the both of them, and not just him. To finally cut off the ends of a fizzling relationship and that would be alright as long as he didn't think about it too long and didn't feel like an idiot. For sure he knew he didn't hear Izaya choke on his words and tell him that it was fine Shizuo didn't love him. Never heard the beginnings of maybe a laugh or a sob, he'll never know. With the broken arm of his, he'll be busy enough cursing Shizuo in the first place for why this happened and maybe karma was a bitch.

It sure didn't feel that way. Almost entirely numb to everything else, never finding the energy to do much anymore after arriving home and unable to remember the path he took home. As if nothing had mattered at all and then wanting it to be worth something was more of a lost cause drowning in its own watery grave of realism and heavy decorum. But exaggerating was more of Izaya's tactic in anything and everything—so what if that "I know" meant entirely something else and he—could be debatable if he thought about it. Despite the tension slipping between his fingers and the absence of bitter coffee or fatty tuna in his mouth from an invitation and a flirtatious pull at his heartstrings, Shizuo wasn't about to pick up the phone or make the bed on the side where the sheets were still messy.

Though it didn't help how cold it could get in his apartment from being summer nights and no heating system for the last tendrils of spring hanging in colder mornings fogging up the windows. No replacement for the rise and fall of the knobs on Izaya's spine, just pushing the skin of his back and relaxing with careful touches stroking downwards or burning trails of circles winding until he reached the prize of a pair of lips on his. When it didn't make any sense in the beginning that Izaya hated morning breath and being awoken by Shizuo tugging the sheets away just to pull him closer and rest his head over the left side of his third and fourth ribs. And yet he still did the same thing every morning.

It used to work that way, and Shizuo believed that it was enough to wake up and be reminded of an emptier room and no ghosts to haunt him. Maybe in his sleep, but he'd forget the nightmares anyway. It was just a part of moving on; cutting the last strings of whatever remained stitched onto him so easily natural he'd forgotten what it was like to not see another in himself when gazing into dark red eyes bright and inviting like neon signs.

There wasn't any trace that Izaya had been here, he later came to realize.

And that was just alright. He didn't need another sign to remember what didn't exist any longer. Just another day of being sent home, ignoring which way he took to get back purposely so he wouldn't remember anything at any of the shops he usually passed. If it hurt when he was meaning to pay attention then all the more reason to ignore, ignore, ignore, and cleanly cut away the parts of his heart that ached early in the morning to late nights of rarely getting any sleep without dreams. Because the point of moving on was forgiving and forgetting or leaving it bitter the same taste of coffee. Which included no goddamn milk or sugar when Izaya was a manipulative, evil bastard for kissing his way into mornings that currently would not exist.

In one way it was always Izaya's favorite habit of playing for keeps and never returning. At times back to the same bed, but for this time Shizuo knew that there wasn't any sort of positive feeling, if anything at all could be mustered and given a name with a head clear enough to pay attention. Ending these sorts of things he had always figured were worse than they sounded.

A glass of milk—he would rather not right now. Not so much interested in eating when it tasted like ashes on his tongue and even the sweetest things he could piece together too much to fit just right. It didn't concern him then and still didn't now when Izaya tasted like champagne on good days and tea on the quiet days. Of course there was never enough sugar to make the sour taste of informant and evil disappear completely, but there were times that Shizuo found Izaya had a penchant for dark chocolate cake. A secret between them, a taste for keeps, and a kiss for good luck and why not when spending a day of indulging quiet times and better days than not fighting in the confines of never letting the information run free and jacket fluttering behind. Or the flying street poles and signs catching up playing keep away once again and there were days of cornering kisses and interrogating gasps and moans of yes, please, and more would be appreciated if he would have the strength to confess the buzz it sent down his spine each time skin collided with his in a rusty sort of feeling old and new.

And then it could be, covering his mouth with his hand and sliding upward, over his nose and cheekbones where nimble fingers would linger and lips ghost over his in those times. The art of hanging on for too long and a messy breaking up was supposed to happen in these kind of things. Going to bed meant confronting the empty sheets in front of him with the indent of another body pressed so carefully from sleepovers to cuddling and exploring touches from teasing to sincere flushing silence of revealing old wounds and weaknesses, wrapping in blankets to press the air between them together as if any space was miles deep and jagged between two bodies.

He shook his head, slowly as to recount the days never bothered to count. One became two and two was not the same as being one and enough burdening hurt left for the room of two. Hours pass and in realizing nothing at all the last time the phone call came through wasn't the same time as remembering how to breathe again if he can grasp for air a monster didn't need to live. Functional, yes, but on leave and worried calls from Tom missing the beat of things and uneasy rhythm and rhyme following after later hours of never checking to realize his phone has one missed call buried beneath the others.

Never mind the bitter taste of salt sliding down his cheek from one eye and to pass the corner of his lip, sliding into the sheets. Preparing for the night alone when everything was just at the peak of beginning to break, the silence was no longer the solace of dry apartment walls and wet wooden floors in another building with one informant and not so much a human being remaining with the same kind of overwhelming accomplishment of grim mutual coercion to hang up on these sorts of things.

The pain, Izaya never cared to admit it as, felt as unstable as atoms collapsing in a new dysfunctional state of creating something so hazardously ugly that is worked to shatter and rebuild walls. Work diligently counting over the missed phone calls from whoever it could possibly be from bleach blond and coffee eyes taking a sip and leaving him empty and wet. The same sort of feeling hanging off a streetlight glittering in the darkened sky of rain beginning to splatter and cover every stretch of meaning to feel too much and washing away whatever sense of self-preservation remained. In the past, this wasn't a matter of rewriting history but forwarding to the present tense of watching himself fragment when the pieces would not click together in jarring motions of robotic nothings.

So every

little

piece

_crumbles._

* * *

><p><em>Honestly, I don't know why people think I'm female. Where did that rumor come from? Anyway, this is for PendulumDeath, the mean person who can't learn past tense to save her life. Would you learn past tense now? Or I'll keep writing things like this. Final warning, my dear. Stop writing present tense. That's my job.<br>_

_See a spelling mistake? Let me know._

_Thank you for reading._


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